“My goodness, Josie looks weird tonight, don’t you think, Paul?”
“A bit indisposed, I guess.”
“Drunk. My fault, I confess. I started this brannigan. She’s about to roll under the table. Honey,” Richard raised a hand and snapped his fingers, trying to call the girl’s attention. “Wake up. Chin up, like a lady.”
Josie shook her thoughts off at Richard’s call. She decided to stand up and check on Peter’s painting.
“Is that me?” she asked in disbelief, staring at the red circle.
“It’s not finished,” Peter responded.
“That doesn’t look at all like me. It’s a red circle.”
“It doesn’t have to be you.”
“Why, I’ve been sitting there for a while. I thought it was going to be me, that you were doing our portrait. Is that Lina?”
“Yes,” Peter sighed. “That’s Lina.”
Josie gave Peter a black look.
“Make it a nude portrait,” she pouted her lips.
“Take your clothes off,” Peter shrugged.
Josie stared at him with defiance. A bubbly sensation tingled inside her head. She remembered the money. The two ten dollar bills burning inside her bra. She looked briefly towards Eva. What was she laughing about, that cunt? No one paid attention to her. Everyone hated her.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll do it.”
She gave her sweater to Lina, reached back and lowered the zipper of her own dress. She pulled the straps off and let it fall to the floor. The audience roared. She unfastened her bra and also let it fall down. She shook her shoes off, rolled down her nylons and finally, after blowing a kiss to the audience, she took off her panties. She put one foot in front of the other and raised her arms in a ballerina pose, the left hand higher than the right, her wrists against each other. She looked at the bewildered artist and, signaling her body with her nose, she said, “Paint me.”
Peter reached for a brush and started covering her body in green and blue paint. Josie tiptoed to the canvas and pressed her body against it. She turned around and presented her behind to the artist, who covered it in yellow; then, she pressed it against the cloth.
The crowd responded with thundering applause.
The owner of the coffeehouse, Mr. Matthews, approached the girl with a white tablecloth. Josie shook her head disdainfully. Mr. Matthews insisted, politely. The crowd booed the lawyer. Josie laughed. She lowered her arms and sneered provocatively at Mr. Matthews, like a five-year-old who’s told not to eat with her fingers, and let him wrap her body in the tablecloth. The crowd clapped again. Mr. Matthews picked up Josie’s clothes and escorted the girl to the ladies’ room to get dressed. They passed close to where Richard and Paul were standing, and as Josie blew a kiss to the pair, she caught a glimpse of Russell’s eye staring directly at her.
That doleful sight was more that she could bear. A punch would have been less painful. A stab on her chest much less hurting. He looked so sad and affronted. The bruises under his eyes made him look even more pathetic. Josie’s heart fell to her feet, tugged by the weight of guilt. She realized what she had done. Naked, in front of everyone. How could she hurt him so badly? Didn’t she love him? Wouldn’t she die for him? She would! She would jump off a cliff for one of his kisses. She would pull her eyes out if he asked her. She would chop her tongue off with her own teeth if one of her words didn’t please him. If she had any doubts of her love of him, they all dissipated with that look of bile and disenchantment emanating from beneath his eyelashes. She raised her arms to her chest, feeling naked for the first time that evening.
After she got dressed, she approached her erstwhile lover.
“One word and I will leave this place with you.”
Russell didn’t respond.
“Are you in love with her?”
“Who?” Russell avoided her look.
“Eva.”
“That’s stupid.”
“You slept with her. She was in your room…”
“She was taking care of me,” Russell mumbled.
“Was she?” Josie replied, the rage of the defeated sphinx reflected in her semblance. “Well, I know a guy or two that can take care of me, too.”
17
In which we visit another cemetery
Ms. Cummings and her little maid were getting ready to take to the streets to sell their twenty-five–cent Bibles when the telephone rang in her kitchen. Ms. Cummings put down her purse and rushed to answer. She exchanged a couple of words with the person on the other side of the line and passed the telephone to the little woman.
“The baby soiled his nappy,” President Buer’s voice said from the other side. “Number two. He is bawling so, I can barely stand it. What time are you coming home? You need to come now. Your sisters had a fight, and they are not talking to each other. Victoria left the house an hour ago and I’m not sure if Rosa is still breathing. I’d love to help with the child, but you know how repulsed I am by these matters.”
The little woman covered the phone with one hand and apologized with a dejected look to her employer.
“You need to leave, huh?” Ms. Cummings asked. “It will be the second time this week that you’ve left early. Go on. But I’m not paying you for today’s work. You barely did anything.”
“That Ms. Cummings,” President Buer giggled from the other side of the line, “She’s already earned her place in heaven.”
The little woman jumped on her new bike—a green Bendix that the demon had helped her steal from the parking lot in Pacific Ocean Park—and made it to the house in a few minutes.
She hadn’t yet finished chaining the bicycle to the backyard fence when the fiend came running out of the kitchen door, holding out the baby.
“Thank God you’re here,” President Buer passed her the baby. “I can’t stand the smell of a child’s feces!”
He was wearing Victoria’s house slippers, Josie’s blue scarf, and Rosa’s party earrings.
“I should have never asked you to steal a child,” President Buer said, biting his lower lip. He led the little woman into the kitchen. “Babies are too much work. They do nothing but eat and cry and poop, and while they’re fun to kiss and fondle, once the novelty is gone, they’re too much responsibility, don’t you think?”
The little woman stepped onto her kitchen stool. Holding the baby against her shoulder with one arm, she managed to empty the kitchen sink with the other and turn on the water to rinse the baby’s bottom.
“Make sure the water is not too hot for him. As much a pain as he is, you don’t want to burn the little angel.”
The little woman wrinkled her nose. She had to agree with the fiend: babies were a handful. The two crones weren’t any help. All they did for Dorothy’s Angel was to tickle the baby’s feet and throw him air kisses. Victoria had thrown up the first time she tried to change the little boy’s diaper, and who had had to clean up that as well? She had. President Buer boasted to have excellent credentials as a familiar, but he refused to help and was quite an unreliable nanny. He drank the baby’s milk, let the dog lick the baby’s face, played the television so loudly it woke him, and never washed his hands before carrying the little thing.
“I know what you’re thinking. I know that keeping the baby wasn’t our original plan,” President Buer continued. “It wasn’t mine, at least; I wanted to eat him. But your two sisters have fallen in love with him and I have no heart to separate a little boy from his mothers. Besides, you know what? I think I’m a racist. And so is the Little Master. He’d much rather eat the limbs of a white child. Black people eat quite unhealthily—corn and potatoes, fried chicken, fried okra. Everything is fried or has too much salt or too much sugar. God knows what they’ve been feeding this creature—we could get a disease! Colored people eat very poorly in general. When I lived in Cambridge I couldn’t stand the smell
of cumin from the Indian students. And, no offense, my dear friend, but the things you Mexicans eat—you need something with which to dry him off, love? I’ll get you something.” The fiend opened a drawer and offered the little woman a dish towel. “Why do you Mexicans have to make everything so spicy? Even your candy is spicy. Had you stolen a Mexican child and had your sisters not confiscated him before we cooked him, I would still be paying for it in the loo. Mexican hurts on the way in and on the way out,” the demon chuckled.
The little woman responded to the demon’s jest with her usual silence. She didn’t mean to be rude, especially not to a demon, but she didn’t find President Buer’s jokes all that funny.
She dried the baby as best she could, walked to the living room and left the little angel lying on the couch. Rosa had fallen asleep in her chair watching television. The little woman turned off the set, confirmed that her sister was still alive, and then tiptoed into the old crone’s bedroom in search of a piece of cloth to use as a diaper.
The demon remained by the kitchen door, staring with disgust at both the child and Rosa’s drooling.
“Forgive my impertinence,” he said, raising his voice so the little woman could hear him, “but—is there a chance you could recommend my services to your sisters? I understand that they no longer attend the Sabbath and I understand that they do not want a familiar, but—we have such a nice time at night watching the telly! I like them a lot. I wish I could reveal myself to them and put myself at their service. I feel so sorry for them when they lose track of what’s happening on television. We love Alfred Hitchcock Presents. During the breaks, I lower the volume to summarize the action. Poor things. I don’t let myself be seen, of course, so they get all scared. They don’t know who’s doing the talking…”
The little woman came back carrying a hamper full of linens and a pair of scissors.
“What on earth happened to them?” the demon gestured at the old woman in the wheelchair. “This one cannot walk, and the other can’t remember what she had for breakfast. Actually, neither one does. They used to be so graceful and lucid!”
The little woman offered a wretched face in response. What did she care? Her life was going be much easier the day her two sisters kicked the bucket. She sat on the couch next to the baby, set the hamper on the floor and started sorting the linens, planning to cut the old ones into diapers. The demon sighed and sat next to them. He grabbed the linens that the little woman had set apart as “still good” and started folding.
“I remember the day when your mother took your sisters to their first ball,” he continued. “Such a remarkable woman, your mother; such a shocker when she opted for the path to righteousness at the very last moment. They were vicious, that pair. And absolutely beautiful, especially Victoria. What eyes! What legs! What a mouth! Shaped like a little rose. Rosa was pretty too, and she knew well how to please a man—if you know what I mean. I can tell none of you three share the same father,” he picked his nose. “And now look at her, like an old leather sack, covered in dark spots and wrinkles. Isn’t time a pest?” He scraped off a booger under the sofa. “Why do people have to get old? Why did these two have to lose their beauty and their sanity? If there’s a God—and I sometimes have my doubts there is one; let me say, and I’m not an atheist, we demons are quite superstitious, I spit on the holy name of Jesus—he must be so, so, so selfish…oh, darling,” the demon laughed, interrupting himself and raising the pillow case he was folding. “This thing sure is thin. How old is it? Don’t save it. Make it a nappy. You can’t let your sisters have these old things. You make good money!”
The kitchen door to the outside opened with a squeak. President Buer froze. The little woman stretched her neck to look over and saw a sniveling Josie creep into the kitchen.
“We forgot to lock the door,” the demon mumbled.
The swinging door that led to the living room was also open.
Fortunately, the girl was only interested in using the telephone. They heard her turn the rotary dial.
“Heather?” She spoke with a broken voice. “Yes, it’s Josie… Not so well, no. Something happened… It’s long to explain. I was wondering if you could come… Oh, please, Heather, you need to come, I don’t know who else to call and you’re my best friend!… I know but—… You can bring him here. He can take his nap here… We’ll fix something… I’d rather not tell you over the phone… Yes, it is about Russell… I rather tell you when you come…”
“Who is she talking about?” President Buer asked. He climbed to the back of the sofa to better spy on Josie.
“Oh, Heather, I did something awful. Russell is never going to forgive me! And that stupid, stupid, horrible kike… Yes, she was there too, and she saw what I did. I hate her so much!”
“Who’s the kike?” President Buer asked. “What did she do? Why does she hate her?”
The little woman hunched.
“You should know about these things. Go listen through the other extension.”
The little woman scurried into her sisters’ bedroom and carefully picked up the receiver.
“Have you talked to your landladies about the spell?” she heard Heather ask.
The little woman flinched.
“No,” Josie responded after a short pause.
“What are you waiting for?”
“I didn’t have the money.”
“Do you have any now? Girl, you need to act. Otherwise you’ll never get back your man. You need to ask them.”
Just then, Victoria entered the house through the front door.
“Dinner was good,” Josie said, as the old hag dragged her feet to the sofa. “Lobster, yes. I drank a little too much champagne…” She lowered her voice. “I just don’t know how to ask them.”
“Are they there?”
“The oldest one just came in. The other one is sleeping.”
“Go and ask her.”
“How?”
“Ask her if she knows a remedy to the evil eye. Then change the subject. Ask her if she knows how to counterattack a curse, what it takes to do it, all the details. But be subtle. Remember they’re not too open to revealing their secrets.”
Josie took a breath in. “Okay,” she said and put the telephone down.
The little woman dashed out of her sisters’ bedroom to peek into the living room from the hallway.
Victoria was rubbing her knees, seated between President Buer and the baby.
“Ma’am,” Josie asked timidly from the door. “I need a… I wonder… I wonder if you—Whose kid is that?” she asked.
“He’s an orphan,” Victoria responded, turning her back to the girl. “We didn’t steal him,” she stuttered. “His mother begged us to take care of him on her deathbed. She gave him to us willingly.”
Josie looked confused for a second. What was a black baby doing in her landladies’ house? Could that be John’s child who had been stolen? It couldn’t be. That must be a different child… But what did it matter? She had her own problems.
“I meant to ask,” she resumed her plea. “Do you have anything for the evil eye?”
“Do you want to cause it or prevent it?” Victoria asked, checking on her sleeping sister out of the corner of her eye.
“I want to cause it,” Josie responded.
Love, or the Witches of Windward Circle Page 25